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He wasn’t facing his father tonight, not while his mother was sleeping at another man’s house. So that left him with the house he’d had prepared for himself and his wife to come home to after their honeymoon. It probably wasn’t even fully furnished yet but it was his and Henry had the keys.
‘Let’s go to the town house. See if they’ve delivered the liquor cabinet yet.’ Because, while a night of whisky in some dive bar was off the cards, there was no way he was getting to sleep without a drink tonight.
Henry gave the address to the driver and Flynn tipped his head back against the headrest and tried not to think until they arrived there.
The house loomed out of the darkness like a mausoleum. Flynn forced images of how he’d imagined his life in this place from his mind as Henry fumbled with the keys, and made his way straight to the library as soon as the door swung open. Boxes of books sat unopened on the floor, surrounded by empty shelves awaiting them. His desk had been placed at the wrong angle in the corner, but next to it sat his liquor cabinet. It was empty, of course, but a short search turned up the box containing his collection of fine malts and Henry soon tracked down the tumblers in the kitchen.
Flynn pulled the two wing chairs into position on opposite sides of the empty fireplace, ignored the mess around them and poured them each a double measure of his favourite Scotch.
Henry waited until his whisky was halfway down the glass before he spoke, which Flynn appreciated.
‘So. What happens now?’
The question he’d been avoiding all night. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Okay. Well, I guess you don’t need to figure it all out tonight. You both need time, and with her father sick... Helena’s asked me to find Thea. Get her home.’
Flynn looked up at his friend, noting that the concern in his voice was echoed in his expression. ‘How much did you hear? Earlier.’
‘Enough.’ Henry’s voice rang heavy and he stared into his glass.
‘I can’t...I can’t comprehend any of it right now.’
‘The reasons you wanted this marriage—enough to marry the wrong sister, even. They haven’t gone away.’ He was playing devil’s advocate now, Flynn knew. The consummate solicitor, Henry always could make both sides of any argument.
‘I know.’
Henry sighed. ‘I’ll leave you the agreement anyway—the draft version. Read it through again. Maybe it’ll help you come to a decision.’ He pulled the thick stack of paper from his laptop bag and placed it on Flynn’s desk. ‘I’d better go. I’ll call tomorrow, see how things are.’
Flynn nodded, more to show that he’d heard him than in agreement.
‘And, Flynn?’ Henry said from the door. ‘Try to sleep, yeah?’
He didn’t even bother nodding that time. Instead, he sat and stared at the contract that was supposed to ensure his future, his family. He sipped his Scotch and when it was gone he poured himself another.
When he finished that one, he stood, grabbed the stack of paper and tossed it in the empty fireplace.
It could be the first thing to burn when he unpacked the matches.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HELENA HADN’T WANTED to go home—not least because she wasn’t entirely sure where home was. But by mid-morning the next day, after Helena had spent the night sleeping in a very uncomfortable armchair next to her dad’s bed, Isabella was back, looking well rested, immaculate but still with an edge of fear in her eyes.
‘Helena, darling, go home and take a shower. Flynn will be waiting for you—you haven’t even seen your new marital home yet!’
‘I’m fine here, really,’ Helena said, wishing she couldn’t feel the creases on her face where she’d fallen asleep against a striped cushion. ‘Besides, all my stuff is still at Dad’s house.’ That was a thought. Maybe she could just nip back there long enough to shower and change, now she wouldn’t have to share the space with Isabella.
‘No, it isn’t.’ Isabella laid down the words like a trump card. ‘I had everything packed up and moved over to the town house the moment we returned from Italy. All your clothes, books, personal belongings—they’re all there waiting for you in your new home.’
Along with a husband who couldn’t bear to look at her. Perfect.
‘I want to wait until Dad wakes up.’
Isabella’s expression grew concerned again, and she turned to tug Thomas’s sheet a little higher over his chest. ‘Shouldn’t he have woken up already? The doctors don’t seem concerned, but even here I don’t feel you ever really have one-on-one attention, do you?’
‘They’re taking good care of him.’ Helena tried to sound soothing, and also tried to forget that she was talking to her father’s married lover. ‘The best care. And they say he shouldn’t wake up until this evening, so—’
‘So you have plenty of time to go home, shower and see your husband,’ Isabella finished for her, leaving Helena to realise, too late, that she’d been outmanoeuvred by her mother-in-law.
She spent the cab ride to the town house rehearsing what she’d say to Flynn in her head, but it proved unnecessary. Whether he’d gone to the office or his parents’ house, or even back to Italy, Helena had no idea, but Flynn was not home. Not in their home.
She wandered the half unpacked rooms, filled with unfamiliar possessions, taking in the trappings of what should have been her future. In what she assumed was supposed to be the library she found two empty crystal tumblers and a bottle of Scotch—the only real evidence so far that Flynn had even been there at all.
She dropped into one of the chairs, bone-weary, and wondered if this was where he’d sat the night before. Wondered if he’d ever speak to her again, if she’d ever get the chance to explain herself. If it would even make a difference.
She frowned, squinting at the fireplace in front of her. What was that? Leaning forward, she fished out the papers and immediately wished that she hadn’t.
As she flicked through the pages of what should have been her
post-nuptial agreement, Flynn’s plan for their future, she felt the tears begin to fall at last, hot and thick against her cheeks. And, as the words blurred in front of her, she began to rewrite them in her mind, to imagine them the way they should be.
A future she’d want to live. Not one based around who got what or a schedule they had to follow. But a future that grew organically, from the love between two people.
She didn’t want a piece of paper compelling her to live her life bullet point by bullet point. And if Flynn thought that was what he needed...he was wrong. He’d spent his whole life so far trying to place order on an existence that had started in chaos—with not belonging, with bad timing, with uncertainty and manipulation. But he couldn’t do that forever. Life didn’t work that way.
She only had to look at her father in his hospital bed to know that.
Or think about the moment she’d crossed out her sister’s name on that wedding invitation.
Life leapt out at you when you least expected it, and all you could do was hold on for the ride. And someone needed to teach Flynn Ashton that fact.
Maybe even her.
Wiping her tears away with the back of her hand, Helena reached into her handbag and pulled out a pen. Deliberately, and with several thick black lines, she crossed out the boring legalese title and replaced it with her own.
A Manifesto for a More Spontaneous Marriage.
She smiled at the words for a moment, her mind suddenly filled with ideas and possibilities and a world of impulsive romance. Of amazed joy.
And then, starting on the back of page one, she began to write out every hope and dream she had for her future.
Even if she had to accept it would never have Flynn in it.
* * *
Flynn couldn’t stay in the house so he went to the only place he really ever felt at home. The office.
